An unexpected voyage in itself, ‘Once in a Lifetime Vol. 2’ is a book about fascinating destinations that was released by Gestalten in August 2015. Co-edited by the renowned travel journalist Clara Le Fort, the book takes the reader down a visual road where wanderlust is cultivated by unexpected architecture, hidden interiors and bold details. Its beautiful images are accompanied by small texts that offer simple and unpretentious descriptions of different lodges, hotels and locations, divided in five sections: Exploring culture, estates, cities, nature and finally, yourself.

Front cover image: Balloons over Bagan.

Photography by Ken Spence, from Once in a Lifetime Vol. 2, Copyright Gestalten 2015.

On the first few pages, the obsessive compulsive in me found it really hard to let go and enjoy the book; I just couldn’t understand why the location of each featured destination was but a detail written in small letters, or how all these seemingly different places are connected to each other, albeit listed in the same section. As I soon realized, the editor was playing a very interesting mind game: she gently forces you to let go of your typical touristic behaviour, by questioning the little boxes inside your head. Le Fort’s aim is cleverly hinted at in the book’s preface: “In our long to-do list of things to pack we have simply forgotten the most essential: the journey.” Once you learn to trust the ride she’s taking you on, everything begins to unfold. And then you understand why a hot air balloon over Bagan in Myanmar comes right after a beach Camp in South Africa, or have the ability to see the common ground between a Brooklyn factory turned into a hip venue and a hotel in Vienna where hospitality is offered, not only to visiting tourists but also to refugees who have fled their homes. In other words, each destination in this book is not predefined by a name or a pin on a map, but rather they are all identified by the state of mind that they put you in. Consequently, their proximity has nothing to do with coordinates: They have each found their little unmapped homelands in these pages, eager to be explored, one after the other, by the reader.

{YatzerTip} The publication is a follow-up to ‘Once in a Lifetime Vol.1: Travel and Leisure Redefined’, released by Gestalten in March 2012.